DavidV935

Jim, I've experienced the same things as Tigerhawk (Dave), and when FSX freezes during flight and sound continues running, the mouse works for open non-FSX windows, but not any FSX window. I have read your CTD guide and incorporated many of the suggestions in my pursuit of a smoother working FSX. Lately, I have been experiencing a phenomena that I haven't seen mentioned in these threads - If it doesn't freeze, FSX periodically, randomly, and without any input of any kind goes to PAUSE. That's better than a freeze or CTD, but it certainly makes me wonder what that heck caused that? In pursuit of better frame rates, I upgraded system RAM to 16GB; bought an AMD Radeon R7 360 video card with 2GB video RAM (yeah, I know, it's not a high end card, but it was better than the integrated video on the motherboard); and upgraded my power supply to 600W. I bought the AMD video card because my HP computer has an AMD chipset that is supposedly comparable to the i5 Intel processor. Thinking that would all help enable a better FSX experience, I then bought and installed FSGenesis North America and World, GEX North America and Europe, and REX Essential Plus Overdrive. Your comments about going to KIAD are similar to what I experience when going into my home airport of KSTL with freeware addon scenery installed. During descent to STL, my framerates drop from mid-20s down to 4-5 when I get within 15 miles and descending down to around 3,000 ft. It doesn't freeze, it just stutters badly. Your CTD guide was quite useful along with your basic settings guide. Thanks for writing those! I'm coming to the conclusion that no amount of money spent on my PC for FSX will get me to the kind of game performance my kids get on their PS4. I need to start lowering my expectations and become happy with that. Cheers Dave

Bill...great idea! Done. Wanted to share that I've also figured out another way to skin this cat for this particular A319. Since it is an Airbus and this used a modified version of the default A321 panel, I created a second panel folder labeled, "Panel.a321" and then copied the entire default A321 panel into it. Then I edited the aircraft.cfg file to put "panel=a321" so that it used that instead of the cold-start panel. It works perfectly! I abandoned the pa318fd_v3 because it was missing the whole PA318 folder with the aircraft.cfg and .air files.

I downloaded the PA A318v3 and A319v3 by Francois Dore from the library. They are really beautifully done. Unfortunately for me, they are both cold start and require the full pre-start checklist to get the engines running. Personally, I'm not interested in that level of realism while I understand others might be. Is there something that can be changed to enable warm starts for these planes without the need to go through the pre-start checklists?

Martin...I can only talk to your second question about approach speeds. As a former air traffic controller rated in approach control, we rarely gave speed instructions unless some aircraft was closing the required separation as you already stated. More often, I would tell an aircraft to execute a 360-degree turn to restore needed separation. And that was only while flying the arrival routing within our controlled airspace and never while on final. Below 10,000, max airspeed is 250. Most commercial jets fly final approach (last 5 miles) in the 140-155 range and is based on aircraft performance criteria, and our separation between jets on final was never close enough to be speed sensitive. We did factor in speed of turboprops and general aviation traffic into the separation we needed, but we didn't tell them what speed to fly. Transition speeds from enroute descent to final approach while under approach control typically was about 220 at handoff and slowed down to 170 while level by 10-miles out on final approach. That might be too much information.

With that type of system, I'm pretty sure your stutters or lags are not associated with your scenery.cfg. I have less muscle in my PC, and your specs just tell me not to bother paying for higher end stuff. I get stutters too, but my frame rates are high after I take off and before my enroute descent, and they drop like a rock when I'm getting close to the ground. I've also attributed that drop in fps to my weather addon program - REX Essential Plus. I get no stutters from stock scenery at all.

NightFlight157...Jim, don't know if this matters, but I had a similar experience and discovered I added the addon scenery to the wrong scenery.cfg. So, just in case you might have done the same thing I did, make sure you're looking at "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\FSX" and not the scenery.cfg that you see in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X." The other mistake I made which drove me absolutely nuts trying to figure it out was when I added the scenery area and selected the folder location, in the last screen in FSX I clicked the OK button and FSX would not add the area. That particular OK button is a bug. Instead of clicking OK, just right click somewhere/anywhere in the white space in that window. Jim Young...if I said anything wrong, don't hesitate to correct me. Cheers Dave

Having just read this entire thread, it seems the answers offered to his question about order in the scenery.cfg could be re-stated with a little more clarification. For the items AceHigh identified, the original answer of "it makes no difference" is still accurate. However, I did notice some addon scenery items in his list (like Edwards AFB), so I'll offer some additional thoughts for consideration. You may already know this, but just in case, in the scenery.cfg, the "Layer" number is the load order, not the "Area." Recommend you do not change the load order of any of the stock scenery - everything that has a lower Layer number than "Addon Scenery." If you add an addon scenery item that adds something to stock scenery or completely replaces the stock scenery, then it must load after the stock scenery item. There are many folks in this AVSIM community who have far more knowledge and experience than me, so I come here to learn. Hope this helps with your question.

I've discovered that Win10 now requires me to specifically select "Run as Administrator" for quite a few of my applications even though I already am the administrator for this computer. Once I did that, ScreenShooter runs fine. It has absolutely no effect on frame rates. It saves the file as a smaller jpg (you pick the size) in whatever folder you specify vice FSX saving a large bmp in an FSX folder which you have to find, convert, and move to a folder of your choosing.

Thanks so much for giving me a sanity check on this and helping dispel the notion that Win10 was an issue. I discovered when I googled "ScreenShooter" that there are multiple apps with that name and I could not find the one I've been using - I was looking to reinstall it. Downloaded three other ones and tried them out. Ended up keeping the one that was simplest to use even though it has the least amount of features. Again, thanks for your assistance!

I was just typing that question when your answer popped up. Did you hit Print Screen several times and get 3 images posted? Did you also set the value to jpg?

Hmmm...now that is really puzzling! When I hit Print Screen, it will post one bitmap into the folder and it's labeled "temp.bmp" instead of the filename sequence I specified in ScreenShooter v1.6. Hitting Print Screen subsequent times is ignored and only the first bitmap is stored. Additionally, while I specified the image be stored as an 800x600 jpg, it ignores that too. I assumed it was Win10 because I had no problems ever with Win 7. vc10man...thanks for your quick response to check this out. What utility have you been using for your screenshots? Just doing one at a time is a bit too much work. Thanks again.

I've been using ScreenShooter v1.6 for about 10 years to take multiple screenshots while flying in FS9 and FSX. When you hit Print Screen, this little utility automatically captures the screen image in a jpg, assigns a filename, and stores it in the folder of your choice. It's been great to take multiple screenshots while flying without having to paste and save each image individually. Now, after upgrading to Windows 10, this utility still launches, but doesn't capture any screenshots and store them anymore. Does anyone with Win10 use a similar utility that works in Win10 to capture multiple screenshots while flying? Thanks for any recommendations.

Stan...I too enjoy the Saab340. While I still enjoy the FFG Saab using the UAX livery and flying out of Dulles, I also fly the one from Premier Aircraft Design with liveries in FlyBE, Northwest Airlink, and Provincial. Lee...just noticed you're from Grande Praire AB...my cousin's daughter moved there from Nova Scotia and continually posts photos on FB of the mountains. Cheers Dave

Joe..Following your advice, l fixed the scenery.cfg by removing the two offending areas. After doing that, when I launched FSX, I got a Fatal Error message that didn't have anything to do with the scenery.cfg, but I didn't know that at the time. When I did the restore, I still got the same fatal error message, so that suggested it was a completely different issue from the scenery.cfg, and this issue was actually present at my last backup. So, this morning, I went to Microsoft, uninstalled SP2, reinstalled SP1, reinstalled SP2 and that fixed FSX - it launched normally. Everything seems to be working fine now, and just completed doing a system image to preserve that. I had two unrelated problems, but thought they were related, and you helped solve the scenery.cfg problem. THANKS!! :biggrin:

Just deleted those two areas, relaunched FSX and it went through the "building database" sequence. Did not get those area error messages this time, but did get "Fatal Error FSX has stopped working." It looks like I might have to do a RESTORE back a few weeks.

Thanks Joe...it was rather puzzling to me to look at the FSX\scenery.cfg and see the date still at 2006 and none of the changes reflected.

I have about 20 addon scenery areas added for different airports. When I looked at my FSX\scenery.cfg, it only shows up to area.115 "Addon Scenery" but not any of the areas for airports added after that. Where are they stored if not in the scenery.cfg? In FS9, they were all in one scenery.cfg. Reason for my question is this: I just installed the FSX SDK and SP1a and SP2 along with Airport Design Editor 9x. After doing so and completing the setup, I closed ADE and launched FSX, but it crashed with two error messages that scenery.cfg couldn't find area.116 or area.134. Don't know if there is any relationship between the two activities or just coincidence. Any advice is appreciated. Cheers Dave

Rwy 10/28 is correct...verified by latest satellite imagery of the island.

Father Bill...you might be able to appreciate the humor in this...but I looked for an "RTM SDK" and couldn't find one! LOL! When one is a bit lost and trying to find the way, we tend to pay attention to every word of advise - literally, every word! :-) Dave

Responding to the first questions...YES, I was following instructions from the SDK Installation on FSDeveloper.com. Joe, your link to MS Mr. Fix It was key to solving the problem with Install Shield. Once I did that, and I have no idea what it actually did, I went back to the SDK installation instruction using FSX Disc 1, and Install Shield performed correctly. For others that might read this thread, I offer the following expansion on advice in the FSDeveloper forums and here for this topic - and this applies to those with FSX SP2 installed, but without Acceleration installed. To install the FSX SDK the first time: Install the version on the FSX disc 1 FIRST. Then, download and install FSX SDK SP1a from Microsoft, Followed immediately by download and install FSX SDK SP2 from Microsoft. Once done, you can install Airport Design Editor 9x (ADE), and it will find the SDK folders automatically. Thanks Ernie, Rendi, and Joe for responding...we're in business now! :-) Cheers Dave

Correction on graphics card:It's an ATI Radeon HD 4200 with 2943MB of memory.

I have FSX Deluxe, installed both SP1 and SP2, but not Acceleration, and recently started adding airport scenery from the FS9 and FSX libraries. Some objects from FS9 addon scenery are misplaced in FSX, so I decided to download Airport Design Editor (ADE) which requires the FSX SDK to be installed. I've spent a week trying different methods to get the SDK installed, but have failed every time. I've read forum threads here and at FSDeveloper.com and tried the suggestions, but continue to get error messages that stop the installation. Here is what I've tried so far and the results: 1. Insert FSX disc 1; type in Run "e:\sdk\setup.exe. Result: InstallShield error 1607, installation stopped. 2. Insert FSX disc 1; open Windows Explorer, find e:\sdk\setup.exe; right click and select Run as Administrator. Result: progress circle continues endlessly, and have to use Task Manager to terminate. 3. Downloaded SDK SP2 and run. Result: error message saying SDK doesn't match FSX version. 4. Downloaded SDK SP1 and run. Result: same error as for SDK SP2 So, it appears if you don't get the initial SDK installed, you can't upgrade the SDK. Now, the question that comes into my mind is do I have to uninstall FSX, redo an initial installation of FSX and SDK, install SP1 and corresponding SDK SP1, install SP2 and corresponding SDK for SP2 all in that order? If I do that, do I lose all the addon currently installed? Others reported success when they tried #1 above, but I didn't see anyone report the InstallShield error. I've not had that with any other installations. PC info: Win7 Home Premium SP1 Processor: AMD Phenom II x4 840T, 2.90 GHz 6GB RAM, 512 video RAM Cheers Dave

Thanks for the recommendations for FlyTampa...I didn't know about them, but will certainly check them out. Florian...your suggestion made me put my hand to my forehead and say, "Doh" because I had forgotten FSX had added scenery for St Marten. Will try your suggestion first. Cheers All, Dave

Tried two different TNCM addons and have a different issue with each. 1. TNCM Update 1 by Robert Fitz has two hangars on the west end ramp near the approach end of Rwy 10. The hangar objects are there, but completely black, i.e. no textures. It seems odd since one of the .bmp files shows them in green and blue. All other scenery in his addon renders correctly. They look like they might come from EZ-Hangar. If they are, where would I install the EZ Hangar scenery and textures? I got no reply from Robert Fitz email address, so suspect he may have moved on to other things. 2. Juliana2.zip for TNCM by Christian Deblond for FS2004 was a great work when I used FS9. But now, FSX crashes when I set TNCM as my airfield with that scenery area added. I have plenty of other scenery addons from FS9 installed in FSX with no problems, so can't figure out what might be in this addon that has such a catastrophic reaction. Suggestions appreciated... That's not quite correct...I have some problems, like taxiway signs in wrong places, but FSX didn't crash when I added them.

As long as FSX works on my computer and I have so many toys to play with, then it's fun for me and FSX future is in my hands. The only part of the future that makes me wonder is the move to cloud computing with software as a service becoming the norm. Will I still be able to use FSX and all my toys then? I'm not as technically capable as many in this forum - much of the technical talk is just way too complicated for me to appreciate...just a flight sim junkie since FS4.